Next to the vernal equinoxial sign the ancients held the winter solstitial sign in the greatest veneration, and consequently the goat was a very sacred animal and occupied a prominent place in all symbolical mythologies. It was from this point that the Egyptians calculated their new year, although the Persians always reckoned theirs from the vernal equinox; and it was on December 21st that the Egyptians fixed the creation of the world, which gave origin to the fable of a goat having been the creator, thus accounting for the fact of the early copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch commencing with the following words: “At the commencement the goat (העז) renovated the heavens and the earth” (Genesis I. 1). Here we meet with a very good example of the patchwork style in which the Bible was compiled. In Egypt the new year reckoned from December 21st, and the creation was supposed to date from the same time of the year, and consequently in all records emanating from the Nile district the celestial goat was honoured for the occasion with the chief godship; but in Persia the new year commenced on March 21st, the date of the creation being fixed at the same point of the zodiac, so that the chief godship was assigned to the celestial lamb or ram and its five fellow signs of the summer hemisphere. Therefore, as the Hebrews derived their creation fable from the Persians, using also the Egyptian mythology with which to embellish their newly-made cosmogony, the two fables became mixed somewhat in the minds of these ignorant wanderers, the consequence being that in some of their MSS. the creation was said to have been the act of the goat (העז), while in others it was attributed to the ram-sun, Elyah (אליה), or the six summer signs commencing with the ram-sun, and called on that account the Elohim (אלהים), this word being the plural form of Eloh (אלוה) or Elyah (אליה), a compound word made up of Yah (יה), the Hebrew name for the sun-god, and El (אל), the celestial lamb or ram.